


Hero, the definition of

by sprl1199



Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Best Friends, Gen, High School, Morals!, Superfamily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:44:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprl1199/pseuds/sprl1199
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It didn't actually start during their Heroes Ethics class (fifth period, Tuesdays and Thursdays for an hour and a half), but looking back, Will thinks that maybe it should have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hero, the definition of

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tamarind (rogue)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rogue/gifts).



> Happy Holidays, Rogue! I hope this is what you were looking for. I had a BLAST writing this story, and I honestly want to say thank you for the super (heh) fun prompt. I sincerely hope you enjoy it. :)

It didn’t actually start during their Heroes Ethics class (fifth period, Tuesdays and Thursdays for an hour and a half), but looking back, Will thinks that maybe it should have.

“Where should the line be drawn?” Mrs. Smelton asked in that dramatic way she had, widening her eyes and pushing her head forward to peer at each of them in turn, which Will thought was actually pretty inefficient, since there were twenty five kids in the class, and it took so long to look at each of them in turn that the silence stretched awkwardly. 

He had plenty of time to look at the board--”Heroism vs. Villainy"--before her eyes reached his seat in the third row. Their gazes met for a couple of seconds, long enough for her to find whatever she was looking for that signaled his comprehension, then her focus shifted to the seat on Will’s left.

Layla’s hand shot into the air, taking Mrs. Smelton’s attention and direct eye contact as an invitation to engage in dialog. She always did that. Will thought it was adorable.

“Heroic acts are defined by the actor in question--in this case the hero--putting his or her needs secondary to the needs of others.”

Had it been any other student but Layla, Will thought Mrs. Smelton would be miffed to have her round of student eye contact cut short. But she liked Layla, so instead she raised her eyebrows and made an expansive gesture toward Layla’s desk. “Well said, Miss Williams. Well said indeed. But, given that definition, would an individual who committed a crime for the benefit of someone other than himself be engaging in villainy?”

“It depends on the crime,” Layla said immediately.

In the row behind Will and off to the left, Todd “the Toad” Jacobson scoffed. “A crime is a crime. Full stop.” He spoke grandly and with authority, like he was the orator at a political convention or war propaganda event, but he always spoke like that, so Will didn’t think anything of it. Layla, however, straightened her spine with a gleam in her eye that Will had learned over the last four months of being her boyfriend meant she was gearing up for a debate.

“That’s overly simplistic,” she replied crisply. She kept her eyes on Mrs. Smelton, not even turning to look at Milton. “A mother who steals food for her starving children is committing a crime but not a villainous act.”

“She doesn’t have to steal.” Will, who did turn to look back the Toad, saw him stick his chin out stubbornly. Todd’s power was the ability to control any sort of lizard—thus, beyond alliteration, his nickname didn’t make much sense—but there was general agreement that he wasn’t a particularly heavy-hitter, so his defiant expression didn’t cause anyone to quail. Certainly not Layla. “There are all sorts of programs to help out poor families. Theft is a decision that she chooses to make. A villainous decision.”

“Without being part of her life, you can’t possibly know that she has other viable choices,” Layla argued. “Maybe the program to help is full or isn’t helping enough, or maybe she can’t sign up because her abusive ex-husband is the one running it.”

“Now she’s battered? Really?” The Toad’s glare grew increasingly poisonous as his eyes turned into slits, and Layla twisted around to glare at him. Will knew she didn’t particularly like him (no one really did, which was sad, of course, but was also considered to be pretty much Todd’s own fault since he insisted on turning all of his academic medals—since elementary school—into charms and badges that he wore everyday), so he wasn’t surprised when the aloe plant on the window sill started trembling in irritation.

“The point is, you don’t _know_. No one can ever really know the circumstances behind someone else’s decisions.”

“Very interesting discussion, class,” Mrs. Smelton said cheerfully, either ignoring or overlooking the angry glowers Todd was sending Layla’s way. Will gently pushed with his legs to edge his desk a little more directly in Todd’s line of sight, but he miscalculated and accidentally shoved himself and his desk a foot across the classroom floor with a loud screech.

Mrs. Smelton’s bright face turned to him. “You have something to add, Will?” she asked with an expectant smile.

He resisted the urge to slouch down in his chair, feeling his blush--he hated his tendency to blush, no matter how often his mom claimed it was cute--heating his cheeks. “I think Layla’s right. If you’re doing something for other people, even if you’re breaking the law, that can’t be evil.”

Layla beamed at him while Mrs. Smelton made a knowing sound.

“An excellent point, Mr. Stronghold. However,” she turned her attention back to Layla, giving up on the facade that anyone else in the classroom actually had an opinion they felt like sharing. “What if the crime committed was murder? What if this individual felt he-”

“Or she,” Layla said.

Mrs. Smelton didn’t bat an eye. “Or she had no other alternative and was using murder as an attempt to save someone else?”

“Like to protect their family?” Sila Sanders asked. She was a bit of an airhead, so Will was surprised to hear her voluntarily ask a question to further discussion on a topic in class, but as he looked around, he saw that--unlike every other Ethics class he could remember--all the students looked genuinely interested in the discussion.

Layla bit her bottom lip. She always did that when she was uncertain. Will thought it was adorable too.

“If this individual kills someone,” she said slowly, “then he or she is wholly disregarding the needs, the very life, or someone else, and that’s not heroic.” She took a deep breath. “Mrs. Smelton, I’d like to edit my definition.”

“Go ahead, dear.” Mrs. Smelton said blandly.

“Heroic acts are those where the actor--be it a man, woman, or non-gendered entity--puts the needs of others, all others, ahead of his or her own in a non-biased, non-prioritized manner.”

“Thank you, Miss Williams, that’s very thorough.” Layla raised her hand to speak again--maybe to qualify her definition a bit more--but this time the teacher ignored her.

“And now for the other side of the equation,” Mrs. Smelton said with obvious relish. “Villainy. How can you tell if someone is simply breaking the law--perhaps out of ignorance, perhaps out of desperation--”

Todd snorted. “Yeah, all those battered, starving women who need to murder to feed their children. Or maybe they just want to get into the papers. Everyone knows villains get more press.” Mrs. Smelton ignored him. Beside him, Will saw Layla grind her teeth.

“What precisely makes a villain?”

Class ended early after Milton Bradshaw—a student with the ability to grow bone spurs out of any part of his body—got so agitated by the discussion that he accidentally grew bone spurs out of his knees that drove through the top of the desk and pinned him in place. But even if you ignore that, the class discussion before that wasn’t _actually_ the start of it all, though in Will’s opinion it definitely could have been. It was like one of those things. Kismet maybe.

And Warren wasn’t even in that class.

**

“Can you come over on Saturday?” Will asked Warren before he pivoted sharply and spun on his heels, clutching the basketball to his chest.

Warren grunted, but that could have been because of Will’s elbow in his stomach.

“What for?”

“I dunno. We can watch a movie or something.” The last came out in an embarrassingly high register as Warren--slippery as a snake--managed to steal the ball away and send it dropping perfectly into the net. Warren usually won these after school basketball games, at least those that didn’t end in the ball being either melted or crushed when they got a little too into things.

Will grabbed the rebound and dribbled in contemplation. He’d voiced the invitation mostly to distract Warren from his shot, but he actually liked the idea. He and the sophomore had grown a lot closer since the crisis in October, and he honestly now thought of Warren as his best friend. His much cooler, still slightly scary best friend.

Warren grunted again, and this time Will’s elbow was nowhere near his midsection, so Will picked the ball up to halt the game. “Will you come? I’d really like it if you did. It would be fun.”

Warren glared at him, but that was pretty much par for the course, so Will didn’t take it to mean anything particularly negative. 

“I don’t think your dad wants me over at your house,” Warren said after it became clear that Will wasn’t backing down.

“What? You really think that?” Will asked, genuinely surprised. He hadn’t noticed anything strange in how his parents treated Warren the few times he had come over for dinner, but then again, he’d mostly been paying attention to the nuances of how they treated Layla, now that she was his girlfriend rather than his best friend. So far they hadn’t insisted that Will keep his bedroom door open, but he expected that rule any day now. His mom had started to get a little wrinkle between her eyebrows whenever she watched them together.

“Really, my parents like you. It’s cool if you come over.”

Warren looked uncharacteristically uncertain. “If you’re sure.”

“Of course I’m sure,” Will said confidently. “Why would you think they don’t want you over?”

Warren rolled his eyes. “Supervillain dad, Stronghold. Remember?”

Will hadn’t exactly forgotten, but he hadn’t thought about it in so long, it was almost like hearing it for the first time.

“Oh yeah, that’s right.” He considered the information, but really, it wasn’t like it actually meant anything. “And superhero mom, right?”

Warren still looked a little unsure underneath his usual sneer at Will’s ignorance. “Yeah.” 

Will beamed. “Then there you go. It’s not a thing. Don’t try and make it a thing.”

“I’m not making it a thing,” Warren groused, but his cool mask was back in place, and Will knew he had gotten through.

“Saturday at 1:00,” Will said, palming the ball and using it to point at Warren in emphasis. “Be there. I want to kick your ass at Call of Duty.”

Warren rolled his eyes before he proceeded to take the ball away from Will in a dizzying display of speed and aggression. “Like that’ll ever happen.”

**

So it all actually started Friday morning while they were waiting for the school bus. 

Layla bumped his shoulder. “Hi.”

Will bumped her back. “Hi.”

They smiled at each other, and Magenta rolled her eyes where she stood beside them at the curb. “Oh, barf,” she said under her breath, and Zach put his arm around her shoulders. 

“Don’t be like that, baby. That’s very appropriate PDA,” he said, not quite managing to move before Magenta stepped on his foot. Then Ethan started laughing, snorting when he really got warmed up, which made them all start laughing, so Magenta hit him with her purse, and that’s when the bus pulled up.

They had enacted almost this exact scene every morning ever since the spring semester started. It was comfortable and familiar, and it made that warmth Will had become accustomed to--the one that first started when he realized he finally _fit_ , finally had people he could call friends--bubble up into his chest until he couldn’t help but grin the grin that Warren dubbed “idiotic and pathetic.”

When the doors to the bus opened and they stepped on board, Will knew immediately that something was wrong. There was a sense of tension in the small space: electric currents on the air, possibly, or maybe that was just Adam Ray’s hair again. At any rate, the majority of the seats on the bus were occupied--as they typically were when Ron pulled up at their stop--and most of the occupants were whispering with wide-eyed excitement.

“What’s up?” Will asked Byron Thompson, a preternatural juggler, as he flopped down into the seat opposite, Layla sliding in next to him.

Byron didn’t even attempt to play coy. “Didn’t you hear? I thought you of all people would know, Will.”

“Know what?” 

“It was all over the news this morning. I thought the Commander was one of the people on scene.”

“That was the Captain,” chirped Mallorie from the seat behind.

“Oh right. Well, it’s an easy mistake to make, you know?”

Layla ran out of patience first. “What scene, Byron? What happened this morning?”

Byron leaned across the aisle and spoke in a whisper that was just as loud as his normal speaking voice. “Baron Battle escaped this morning.”

“What?” Will exclaimed in surprise. “Wasn't he in Steelworth. I thought no one ever escaped from there.”

“There was Madam Sliver and three-quarters of the Opossum Posse,” Layla told him, “but generally speaking, you’re right. It’s very, very hard to escape from. The last successful attempt was over fifteen years ago.”

“Well, Baron Battle was successful alright. Word is, he killed three guards and two other inmates before disappearing in a giant, tunneling tank.”

“I heard it was a hot air balloon with mounted lasers,” someone shouted from the back of the bus.

Byron waved a dismissive hand. “Whatever. He’s out. All the A-list heroes are looking for him.” 

“He won’t get far, then,” Ethan said in confidence. Out of all of Will’s friends, he always had the most faith in the triumph of Good, capital 'G.'

“I hope Warren is alright,” Layla said to Will in a low voice as the bubble of conversation continued. “This has to be tough on him.”

“Yeah,” Will agreed. Warren was tough, probably the toughest person Will knew, except for maybe his parents, but still: this was his _dad_. That would shake anybody.

When the bus pulled up at the school, Will was sure he caught a glimpse of a tall, dark-haired teen in a leather coat stalking around the corner of the gym, but even though he searched until the tardy bell was ringing, he never managed to find him.

**

The whispers started immediately, but Will didn't notice until Deet Bertram came up to him in the hallway after English and asked, in a breathy, excited voice, "Do you think you'll have to be the one to put Warren down when he turns evil? I mean, you're besties, and there's a lot to be said for the tragic mirroring of your story arcs as you move from friends to nemeses. Oooh, do you think you guys will battle epically?"

Will blinked at him, confused. They had just been discussing superheroes in literature by extrapolating various passages from Hamlet--which had definitely included the phrase 'tragic mirroring of story arcs'--so it took him a moment to muddle through what had been said.

"What the-? No! Warren wouldn't-. What are you talking about?" he finally managed to get out. He'd been working on enunciating his best heroic phrases clearly with his mom, but when he was caught by surprise his stutter came back.

Deet's face went slack with confusion for a moment, but then it pulled into an expression of knowing pity (of Will!), which was so much worse.

"Will, it's only a matter of time. I mean, it's obvious, right?"

"No, it's not obvious!" Will barked. Suddenly he was much closer to Deet, and the boy's eyes were so wide it was like a comic book rendering of shock.

"Will, let go of his shirt, honey." Layla laid a calming hand on his shoulder, and that was when Will realized he had picked Deet up by the shirt collar and was holding him against the wall. Just a half an inch or so, really, and Will was actually a little bit shorter than him, but he realized with a cold jolt that given the other kid's expression it was enough to be frightening.

"Sorry," Will said, setting him down and stepping back with a blush. "You just surprised me."

Deet made a show of straightening his collar nonchalantly, but he kept a wary watch on Will out of the corner of his eye. "So I see."

“Deet, are people saying that Warren is going to join up with his father?” Layla asked, as always getting to the crux of the matter.

The boy looked confused. “Well, yeah, of course,” he said, and suddenly Will was angry again.

“What do you mean, _of course_? Warren wouldn’t do that!” Will wasn’t sure why he was so upset. Deet was misinformed, _obviously_ he didn’t know what he was talking about, but it still sucked. Warren of all people didn’t deserve to have his good name doubted by his classmates. Didn’t they know him at all?

“I don’t know, man. It’s not that much of a stretch. I mean, his superpower is setting people on _fire_. If that’s not a villainous power, I don’t know what is.” They were started to attract a crowd, and Will saw a couple of the onlookers nod in agreement.

“There’s no such thing as a villainous power,” Will said, offended. “Just like there’s no such thing as a quote, unquote heroic power. It all depends on how you use it.”

“Will’s right,” Layla said, in a clear, ringing tone that--despite its natural sweetness--managed to carry down the hallway. “The only thing that defines a person is his or her own actions. Not their powers, not their background, and certainly not their parentage.” She looked around at the crowd of high schoolers with a stern expression that Will privately defined as her ‘teacher look.’ “And anyone who thinks otherwise should be ashamed of themselves.”

On cue, several of the students blushed or looked away before they walked off, recognizing that the hallway entertainment was over, and Will felt a familiar swelling of pride and affection for his best friend-come-girlfriend.

“What?” Layla asked, and Will realized he was still smiling in her direction.

“Nothing,” Will said immediately before remembering the advice his mom had given him when he first started dating Layla. “I mean, that was just really cool, that’s all.”

Layla flushed and fidgeted, the stern authority figure of a moment before completely gone, but the shy eyes that met Will’s were pleased. “It’s nothing more than the truth.”

“You’re right,” Will agreed, before an uncomfortable twinge of worry--intuition maybe--wiped away his smile. He still hadn’t been able to find Warren, and if people were already approaching Will about a ludicrous nemesis battle, who knew what they were saying to the other boy? The same thought seemed to occur to Layla at that moment.

“But sometimes people need to hear the truth, even if it seems like it should be obvious,” she said, gently touching Will on his shoulder. “I think Warren could probably use a friend right now.”

He grabbed her hand and held it. “He has one,” he said.

She curled her fingers around his own. “He has more than one,” she corrected.

**

Will didn’t see Warren again that day, nor did the other boy answer his cell phone when Will called it after school. At least not until he made it clear he wasn’t giving up on reaching him that day.

“God damnit, Stronghold,” came Warren’s growl.

“Where were you today?” Will asked after he picked his phone back up from where he’d accidentally knocked it away when he flailed. He’d been lying on the floor bouncing a tennis ball off the ceiling (gently, since his mom had sworn to confiscate his cell phone if he put another hole through the drywall), and Warren’s voice had come as something as a surprise.

“Why are you calling me?”

“To find out where you were today.”

“Why?” He sounded less than pleased to hear from his best friend.

“Because I was worried about you,” Will said a bit impatiently. Really, he thought it was pretty obvious. “I heard about your dad,” he said, more softly.

“And you felt like you had to call me fifteen times in a row?” He still sounded displeased, but it was more of the usual Warren-level of displeased rather than the upset-plus-slightly-tight-and-wary-undertone he had started with.

“You wouldn’t answer!”

“Did it ever occur to you that I didn’t want to talk to you?”

“Not really,” Will said honestly, and Warren huffed in amusement.

“I swear, Stronghold, you’re the most oblivious person I’ve ever met.”

“Are we still on for tomorrow?” The silence went on long enough that Will was readying an entreaty of some sort (maybe they could play Halo instead; Warren always won at Halo), when he answered.

“Yeah. Yeah, Stronghold, you’re on,” Warren said before abruptly hanging up.

Holding his cellphone in one hand and the tennis ball in the other, Will felt a moment of supreme optimism. Everything was going to be okay.

**

The sense of optimism carried him all the way until the bus pulled up Sky High on Monday morning, and instead of heading to first period English, Will and the rest of the students were herded into the gym.

“This won’t take long, students, and then I’ll expect you all to proceed immediately to your first period classes,” Principal Powers said. She looked around the crowded bleachers gravely. “In light of recent events, and out of an abundance of caution, the school is going to be implementing some additional security features.”

Automatically, Will started looking for Warren, finally spotting him at the very top of the bleachers next to a senior girl who blended into shadows and a boy who talked to fish. He was hunched into his leather jacket, and--even though it was hard to tell for sure from where he was sitting--Will thought he looked pale.

A small murmur started up, and Ms. Powers waved them into silence. “This won’t be indefinite, and your daily routines should not be impacted. However, there are a few simple rules I expect you all to abide by. For your own safety.”

“Rule number one: No student may be present on the grounds of the school between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. These hours account for any of the approved after school activities and clubs.”

The shadow girl leaned over to whisper in Warren’s ear, and he flinched. 

“Rule number two,” Principal Powers continued. “All students must carry their student IDs with them when outside the classrooms during school hours. This includes the grounds, sports fields, and gym. I know this will be inconvenient, particularly for our sports teams, however this is absolutely critical. Your student ID is tied to your biometrics and will allow our security assets to identify you as a student. Do not under any circumstances loan your ID to another student or a stranger.”

The murmur increased in volume, and Will saw a few of the football players huddle together, their expressions mutinous.

“Finally, rule number three: if a teacher or other school security asset requests you to move to a location for your safety, you will do so immediately. All of the school classrooms have been equipped with security doors. If an incident occurs, they will shut automatically. I expect all of you to wait in safety until the situation is resolved. You will _not_ attempt to address the situation yourself.” Will thought she stared at him while she said this, but he may have been imagining things.

“Are there any questions?”

“Yeah, teach!” Terry Bradin--one of the football players--raised his hand immediately. “What do you mean by ‘security asset.’”

“That will vary depending on our assessment of the security situation at the school,” Ms. Powers replied, which was pretty much the least informative answer ever in Will’s opinion.

“Like robots?”

“Possibly,” she said succinctly. “Any other questions?”

Lily Rodriguez raised her hand. “Is this about Baron Battle’s escape?”

“I’m afraid I can’t comment on that specifically, nor does it affect the student rules I’ve just stated,” Ms. Powers said, but it didn’t do any good. At Lily’s question, almost everyone in the gym had looked at Warren. He glared back at them all coolly, but it made something squirm uncomfortably in Will’s chest anyway. He was about to stand up and say something when, Layla, seated next to him as always, beat him to it.

“There’s an escaped villain, yes, but the fact that it’s Baron Battle is irrelevant,” Layla said in a ringing voice as she climbed up on the bench she had just been sitting on. Wanting to show support, Will hopped up next to her. “Principal Powers is acting the way any school administrator of a super-powered high school would act after the escape of a dangerous prisoner. The identity of the prisoner doesn’t matter.”

“You sure about that?” asked Todd “the Toad” slyly from the bench just in front of them. Will glared at him, but it didn’t faze him. 

Layla looked at him directly. “Yes, I’m sure,” she said, a dangerous light in her eyes, and this time Todd backed down. After word had gotten out about Layla’s battle during Royal Pain’s takeover of the school, she had developed a well-deserved reputation as a badass when angered.

Of course, there was always one idiot.

“What about Peace?” shouted Bradin. “He’s Battle’s son!”

“So?” Layla asked him, raising a cool eyebrow.

“So maybe he’s working for him. Helping him stay hidden.”

“No he’s not!” Will said, realizing only after he’d said it that it had come out as a shout. “Warren isn’t helping Baron Battle, and he’s not _going_ to help Baron Battle, and for you to imply that he would makes you an as-” Layla stepped on his foot, and he edited on the spot, “astoundingly obtuse.”

Still sitting in the back, Warren rolled his eyes, but Will ignored him. It was a phrase he’d heard Magenta use, and he’d always liked it.

“And anyone who continues being astoundingly obtuse, will have to answer to me,” he continued, doing his best to glare threateningly. “To us,” he amended when Layla’s foot impacted his again.

“Thank you, Mr. Stronghold, for that rather dramatic statement. You are all dismissed,” Principal Powers said, “please proceed to your first period class immediately.”

As the students were filing out of the gym, Will managed to catch up with Warren. “Hey, you okay?” he asked. In response, Warren tucked his hands deeply into the pockets of his leather jacket and hunched up his shoulders like he was trying to disappear. 

“Go away, Stronghold,” Warren murmured as Will tried to keep up with his longer stride, Layla practically jogging alongside him. “You should know better than to ask me that in public.”

“Warren, don’t worry about them,” Layla said. “They’re just idiots.”

“Astoundingly obtuse idiots,” Magenta said, popping up with Ethan and Zach to complete their little pack. 

“Yeah, don’t worry about it, man,” Zach said, slapping a friendly hand on Warren’s shoulder. 

“The heroes are going to catch him soon, and then everything will go back to normal,” Ethan said with certainty as they walked as a group through the door.

Will allowed himself to take the words in and be buoyed by them, and as they stepped out into the sunlight, he even believed them. Maybe it _would_ be over soon.

Of course, that was before someone melted Dr. Medulla’s robot.

**

“All they know so far is that an extreme heat source was responsible,” Layla said at lunch the next day. Their entire group was huddled at their usual table, and if they presented a more obviously unified, fortified circle than usual, well, they were obviously the focus of the attention of the rest of the student body. At least, one of them was.

“Like me,” Warren said dully, and Layla touched his hand. 

“We know it wasn’t you, Warren,” she said. 

“When did it happen?” Ethan asked. “Maybe Warren has an alibi,” but Layla shook her head even as he asked.

“It happened sometime last night, but whoever did it managed to black out the cameras too. It could have been anytime over an eight hour period.”

“I don’t suppose you can prove where you were last night?” Will asked his best friend.

Warren grunted. “Home. Asleep.”

“Do you happen to have any security cameras. You know, aimed at your bed?” As one, they turned and stared at Zach.

“No,” Warren said after a long, awkward pause.

“Do you, um, live with anyone?” Layla asked, blushing. “What about your mom?”

“No,” Warren said shortly. 

“What about the people in the restaurant?” Will asked, remembering that Warren had once mentioned he lived above the restaurant where he worked.

“There’s no way I can prove I was home when it happened.”

“Well,” Layla said after they lapsed into a somewhat defeated silence. “Then I suppose we’ll have to figure out who really did do it.”

**

They divvied up assignments. Ethan had the best relationship with Mr. Medulla (he was his faculty mentor for an extra credit knock-out gas project he was developing), so he was tasked with figuring out more about the robot itself. Presumably it was one of the “security assets” that Principal Powers mentioned, but beyond that they didn’t know much: where was it stored? did it have any defensive features? what was it made of? was it activated at the time of its destruction?

Zack and Magenta were supposed to track down any rumors circulating in the study body about the culprit--barring Warren--as they were the most plugged into the school social scene.

Meanwhile, Layla volunteered herself and Will for determining who else in the school besides Warren could potentially have melted the robot (“Not that it has to be someone associated with the school, of course,” Layla said, “but given the probability of an unassociated individual being knowledgeable of the robot, desirous of its destruction, and able to derive benefit from it, the likelihood of someone unconnected with the school being responsible is highly unlikely.”).

It sounded good in theory, but what it ultimately boiled down to was the two of them taking advantage of Layla’s office aid assignment to look through student and staff files for relevant powers while also doing their utmost to avoid infringing on individual privacy rights (Layla’s requirement).

“How about that dragon girl, Jillian Wells?” Will asked. 

“She’s not a dragon, Will.” 

“She has flame breath.”

“She’s part _Varanus bitatawa_.”

Will blinked. “What?”

“A giant lizard from the Philippines,” Layla explained and then shook her head. “But I really don’t think it’s her. We have class together. Her maximum temperature isn’t high enough to melt one of Mr. Medulla’s alloys.”

“Assuming the robot was made of an alloy.”

“It almost certainly was,” she assured him. “Mr. Medulla would have used something of his own creation. He wouldn’t have used something potentially inferior.”

“In that case, we’re assuming she hasn’t been intentionally appearing weaker than she actually is.”

Layla wrinkled her nose. “She’s not that devious. And don’t say that’s assuming she’s not just pretending not to be devious,” she said as Will opened his mouth. “Let’s add her to the possible-but-not-likely list.”

Will shrugged. “Okay, how about Jace?”

“The fire dance guy?”

“He sets fire to the ground when he steps in a specific pattern at a specific speed. Set to music.”

“Another not likely, I think,” Layla said after a minute.

Will flopped back in the office chair they were sharing. It was oversized to fit the usual Administrative Assistant, a man named James who looked like an ogre but didn’t have any super-strength or durability to go along with it, so had had a fairly tough superhero career before moving to the school.

“This is hopeless,” Will said glumly. “What’s the chance that we’re going to pick the right person out of the student files? And won’t Principal Powers be doing the same thing?”

“Well, first off, it’s never hopeless,” his girlfriend said, leaning back against his shoulder until they were curled in a sort of half hug. It was nice. “And secondly, I’m sure the teachers are investigating, but their investigation is probably going to focus on Warren.”

“He didn’t do it,” Will insisted.

“I know he didn’t, honey,” she assured him, pulling his arm around her shoulder and sandwiching his hand between her two. “But in the test at the end of last semester, he tested as the hottest.”

“Um, are you talking about that poll that was going around? The one the Jepsen twins put together?”

“No.” She elbowed him lightly. “I mean the abilities test Coach Boomer made everyone take. We were broken up into like abilities and rated, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” Will said as the memory materialized. “I had to do it twice, for strength and for flying.”

“Only because you’re special,” she said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Warren was grouped with other fire manipulators, and out of them all, he was able to maintain the highest temperature of flame.”

“Oh.” Will considered this information. “That’s not good. I mean, not for the current situation.”

“No, it’s not,” Layla agreed somberly, “but that’s why he has us.”

**

Will caught up with Warren after school. Since Principal Powers had made it clear that no one was allowed to stay late on the school grounds, there was a massive stream of students headed to the waiting buses.

“Hey, man,” Will said, grabbing Warren’s shoulder to make sure he stopped. He was pretty sure he would, but sometimes Warren was tricky like that. “How’s it going?”

Warren shrugged off his hand, but Will didn’t take it personally. Warren was much less likely to accept physical signs of their friendship in public.

“What do you want, Stronghold?”

“I just wanted to let you know that it’s going to be okay. We’re going to figure this out.”

Warren raised an eyebrow. “Team Stronghold on the case?”

Will blushed, but he wouldn’t be swayed. He had been dodging people all day who had jumped on Deet’s idea of an imminent super-nemesis battle.

“Yes we are,” he said firmly. “So just hang in there. I’m there for you, man.”

“Sure, Stronghold,” Warren said, turning away to continue on to his bus. 

“I mean it, Warren,” Will said, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd. “We’re in this together!”

The crowd around them suddenly quieted as the students looked at Will in shock, and then immediately began to whisper, their eyes wide as they looked between Will and Warren.

Warren sighed. “Go home, Will.”

“Yeah,” Will said, his face burning. “I’ll call you later,” he called. Warren raised his hand in acknowledgement, but he didn’t look back.

**

The rumor that Will had gone villain started pretty much immediately.

 **[Have awsm vill name 4 u]** , said the text from Zach. **[Will-Power Crusher]**

 **[don’t b an idiot]** , Will texted back before there was a knock on his bedroom door.

“Come in!” 

“Hey, son,” his dad said as he stepped through the doorway. He was wearing his Commander uniform, and it clashed with the tentative, even embarrassed expression on his face.

“What’s up, dad?” Will asked, trying for normalcy.

The Commander stepped over to Will’s bookshelf and fidgeted with the array of knick-knacks and treasures from Will’s childhood. He nudged a framed family photo very slightly to the left before immediately moving it back.

“Son, I just had a call from Bill. You remember him, right? Blazing Sleet?”

Will felt a sinking in his stomach. Blazing Sleet had twins that went to Sky High. “Yeah.”

“Word is that you’re considering, well, moving toward the darker side of the powered world.”

“Dad, that’s just a rumor. A stupid rumor. Everyone at school is freaking out about Baron Battle.”

“Right, Baron Battle.” The Commander paused significantly. “His son Warren goes to your school, doesn’t he?”

“Dad, you know he does. He’s been over here three times for dinner. He was over here _last weekend_.” Will felt increasingly desperate at his dad's uneasy expression. “But he’s not like that, Dad. He’s _not_. He’s a hero, not a villain, but everyone at school is judging him like they expect him to turn out just like his father. Are you judging him too? Guilty until proven innocent?”

“No, no, Will. It’s not like that,” his dad assured him. “I’m just worried that Baron Battle may try to come after him, that’s all, and, well, family is important. Sometimes it can be hard to know what the right decision is—the heroic decision—and I don’t want to see you caught up in the crossfire.”

“Warren is my best friend, Dad,” Will said, staring his father in the eyes. “He’s not a villain, and I’m not going to abandon him.”

His dad smiled and mussed Will’s hair with a bit more strength than was wise for a normal human. Luckily Will wasn’t normal. “That’s my boy. Just be careful, alright?”

“Always.”

“And if you, you know, do decide you’re curious about the Other Side of things, promise you’ll come talk to me before doing something rash.”

“Dad,” Will groaned, pulling his pillow over his head. “I’m not going dark, okay? I swear.”

“Of course not. I didn’t think you were.”

“Good night, Dad,” Will said, when it became clear his dad wasn’t planning on actually leaving the room without a hint.

“Night, son.”

As the Commander gently shut the door behind him, Will’s cell phone beeped again with another incoming text message.

**[Will-fully Dangerous]**

Will sighed.

**

Unfortunately, the furor didn’t die down over the rest of the week. If anything, it increased. Every news program seemed to be covering the evolving story of Baron Battle at large. There were exposes on his personal history—Warren was never mentioned, Will was thankful to see—retellings of his most famous crimes, and even a televised 24 hour tip line for Baron Battle spottings, of which there were many, none of them real.

And school was even worse: with the exception of Layla, Ethan, Magenta, and Zach, everyone was treating Will and Warren like they had announced their intention to become a supervillain duo before graduation.

Will dropped his head on the lunch table and groaned. At the next table over another student, a small, mouse-like girl, blanched and scurried away, lunch tray in hand. 

“The bubble of villainy that surrounds us is widening,” Magenta observed dryly, buffing her nails as she occasionally stole fries off Zach’s plate.

“Cheer up, Will,” Ethan said. “I’m sure the heroes are going to catch Baron Battle any time now.”

Warren—who was just joining them—slammed his lunch tray down with enough force to make the mashed potatoes and meatloaf jump in a gelatinous lump. “Would you get off that, already? If they were going to catch him, they would have done it by now!”

Will didn’t think that Warren meant for his voice to come out almost at shouting level, but it did, and a hush fell over the cafeteria before the whispering and pointing started afresh.

Warren had the grace to look somewhat chagrined. “Sorry,” he muttered.

Layla shrugged. “It’s not like they don’t already think we’re a coalition of evil in training.”

Will smiled at her. “A coalition of evil?” he teased. She threw a French fry at his nose.

“I still haven’t managed to find out anything from Mr. Medulla about the robot except that it was experimental, one of a kind, and meant to be a backup security system for the school,” Ethan said, peeling his banana. “He’s pretty broken up about it being gone.”

“Layla and I have been working our way through the list of students with powers that could have melted it, but no luck so far, and no one really fits the bill anyway.”

“No one but me, you mean,” Warren said darkly.

“Magenta, have you and Zach managed to find out anything from the rumor mill?” Will asked to change the subject.

“Yeah,” she replied in a bored tone. “You and Warren are working with Baron Battle to create a mind control system of some sort in order to take over the school, the city, and then the world, and the rest of us are your test subjects. Except for Layla, who everyone agrees is your concubine.”

“Oh,” Layla said, looking pleased. “Well, I'm glad I'm different at least, and that’s basically what we expected. Are there any other rumors?”

“Yeah, lots,” Zach said, taking a loud slurp of his chocolate milk. “But all of them are about Will, Warren, or Warren and Will to some degree.”

“So we’re back to square one,” Will observed, a bit glumly.

“It’s only Wednesday,” Ethan said to reassure him. “We still have half a week to see what clues we can uncover at the school.”

But as it happened, the school week was cut short after someone snuck into the school’s garage and melted all the buses.

**

“This is getting serious,” Layla observed to Will in a low voice as they stood in the quad with the rest of the student body early the next week watching the teachers patrol the classrooms before allowing the students inside. Jetstream and the other flyers and teleporters had gracefully volunteered to transport the students to the school until alternate buses could be found. Ron Wilson, Bus Driver, was on medical leave. Rumor was he’d had a nervous breakdown at the news, run hysterically into one of the school’s chemical labs and fallen into a vat of something or another. Will hoped it wasn’t true. He really liked Ron.

“Yeah,” Will agreed with Layla. And it really seemed like the school was taking the meltings seriously. The students had finally been introduced to another one of the “security assets” Principal Powers had referenced: genetically engineered…dogs…or something. They looked like crosses between dogs, hyenas, and komodo dragons, but Ms. Powers had called them SecuriDogs. 

Another one of the hulking animals passed within Will’s line of sight, pulling a hapless Mr. Boy after it by its leash, and Will shuddered. He thought they were seriously ugly.

“Oh no, Will, look,” Layla said, grabbing his sleeve and pointing across the crowd to where Will could see Warren in the company of Coach Boomer and Principal Powers being marched toward the front office. He walked between them, like a prisoner, Will couldn’t help but think, and the sight caused his hands to clench into involuntary fists.

“We have to do something,” he said, already making to follow them, but Layla stopped him.

“The best thing we can do for him right now is find out who’s really behind this,” she said seriously. “That and let him know that no matter what, we still believe in him.”

Will stared at her for a moment, thanking his lucky stars—not for the first time—that he was fortunate enough to have her in his life. “Yeah, you’re right. Where do you think we should start?”

Her mouth turned up in a quirky half smile. “The garage.”

**

Since the school’s security was so tight, Magenta and Ethan were given the task of searching the garage for clues at lunch that day: Ethan making entry by virtue of siding through a pipe and Magenta entering through an air vent.

“I didn’t see anything,” Ethan said after reforming with them as they crouched behind the cafeteria. “I mean, I saw lots of things, but nothing that seemed like a clue. The buses are seriously melted. It would have taken a lot of heat.”

“Anh the brnz wrr rilly hi uh,” came a tiny voice. As a group, they looked down.

Magenta in guinea pig form primly deposited whatever she was carrying in her mouth and tried again. “I said, the burns on the buses were really high up. Like, someone would have needed a ladder. Or to fly.”

“Oh great,” Will said, slapping his hand over his eyes. “Now they’re going to say I carried him.”

“Did you find any sign of how whoever it was got in?” Layla asked.

Will thought it looked very odd for a guinea pig to shake its head. “No sign of forced entry. I think whoever it was has a key.”

“That narrows it down a bit,” Layla said, looking thoughtful. “All the teachers do, as far as I know, plus a few students with after school jobs. Good work, guys!”

“What did you find, Magenta?” Will asked squatting down to look at the item she had carried.

Magenta twitched, and Will got the impression she would have shrugged had she been in human form. “I’m not sure. I found it on the ground near one of the buses.”

It was a small loop of metal, slightly twisted, with a tiny gap where it must have fallen off of whatever it was attached to.

“Good job, Magenta,” Will said, pocketing it.

“What have we here?” came an unexpected and unwelcome voice. They turned to see Terry Bradin and several other football players arranged behind them in a loose, vaguely threatening semicircle. “Are you villains plotting your next crime?”

“Shut up, Terry,” Magenta squeaked. Zach picked her up and cradled her protectively.

“If you’ll excuse us we have work to do,” Layla said. She walked calmly past them only to have Terry grab her arm in what looked to Will to be a punishing grip.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Let go of her!”

Terry sneered. “What are you going to do, Stronghold? Call Baron Battle? I hope you do. I’d like to go one on one with a criminal legend.”

Will glared, doing his best to channel Warren’s trademark cross-me-and-feel-the-pain expression. “If you don’t let go of her right now, you’re going to go one on one with me.”

Terry was a senior, but Will was pretty sure his power—creating localized wind storms—wouldn’t be enough to bring him down in a fight. He was practically immobile when he put his mind to it.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, Layla laughed and then jerked her arm away from Terry as he blinked in confusion at her actions. She stepped back to Will and linked their arms. “Let’s not waste our time, guys. Lunch is almost over, and we have to get to chemistry.”

Having a good idea of where this was going—he _had_ been friends with Layla since practically birth, after all—Will followed her easily when she prodded him into moving past the football players.

As expected, Terry reached out to grab them, and also as expected, he fell on his face when the grass that had grown and twined around his ankles suddenly pulled tight. The rest of his cronies weren’t far behind.

Will smothered a laugh and tried to look as imperious as Layla as she stepped gracefully past them.

“Oh and Terry,” she said sweetly when they were all past the prostrate seniors. “Don’t ever threaten my friends.”

**

“Will-fully Evil.”

Will rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Todd.”

Zach leaned over the chem lab table to loom as menacingly as he could, lighting up slightly. “It’s Will-fully _Dangerous_ , Toad-man.”

“Zach, that’s not helping,” Will told his friend under his breath.

“My name is _Todd_ , Lightbulb,” Todd said with a sneer.

“I heard from Helena that they put Warren in the detention room,” Layla told him quietly as Todd and Zach continued bickering, Magenta and Ethan watching from another table and giggling.

“The detention room?” Will echoed, aghast. “To nullify his powers? They can’t honestly suspect him, can they?”

Layla shrugged. “Maybe they’re just being careful. Or maybe they’re expecting another incident. If Warren is in the detention room, he’ll be in the clear. Or maybe,” she said, eyes widening as another scenario occurred to her, “they’re worried that Baron Battle is going to come to the school.”

“In that case, I doubt they’d lock Warren up in detention.”

She shrugged again, but her tone was cautious. “Maybe they’re worried he might make the wrong decision.”

“You can’t believe Warren would join up with his father,” Will said, upset.

She shook her head. “No, Will. But Warren had a tough childhood, and he’s always been a little volatile. If he was in the same room as his dad for the first time in years…If it was me, I don’t know how I’d react.”

Will grudgingly nodded. “I still think you’re wrong, though. Warren is a good guy. A hero. I trust him to do the right thing.”

Her smile was brilliant. “And that’s why he’s so lucky to have you as a best friend.” 

“I swear to God, Neon, if you say ‘ribbit’ one more time I am going to kick you in the throat!” They were interrupted when Todd shouted. He erupted out of his seat to lunge at Zach, but a shout from Mr. Medulla made him pull up short.

“Gentlemen! Some decorum, please! This is a chemistry class, not a cage match.” He stared at their table in arch disapproval. “Todd, as my assistant, you are entitled to certain privileges, however those privileges do not include bodily attacking one of your classmates. Please see me after class.”

Todd grumbled agreement as he sat back down, glaring all the while at Zach’s incredibly unsubtle smirk of triumph, and that’s when Will spotted the silver chain dangling from his belt loop.

“Layla,” he hissed, using his head to point to Todd.

“What?” she asked, confusion obvious.

He pointed with his head more emphatically.

“Are you okay, bro?” Zach asked, face worried. "You look like you're having a seizure."

Will raised his hand. “Mr. Medulla, I need to go to the bathroom.”

Mr. Medulla looked unimpressed, but Will used his puppy dog eyes (he knew they were effective, and he’d had a lot of practice on his mother), and he relented.

“Fine. See to your baser biological needs if you must. But be back in five minutes.”

“Of course, sir.” Will gave Layla a significant look, and after another moment of confusion, she raised her hand.

“Mr. Medulla? I need to go as well.”

Their teacher grunted and waved them out of the room. “Whatever. Return promptly, don't get into any mischief, and do _not_ leave the building. The SecuriDogs are restless.”

Layla gave Will a questioning look as he pulled her behind a pillar in the hallway around the corner from the lab.

“It’s Toad. Todd the Toad. Todd is the guy.”

Layla caught on immediately. “Todd? Are you sure?”

“He has a chain on his pants that he uses to hold all those stupid charms and medals that he likes. The metal Magenta found in the garage matches it. It's one of the links!”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.” Will was positive. “Think about it: he’s Medulla’s TA, so he would have had access to the robot. He probably stole his key to get into the garage to melt the buses.”

“But why? And how? How could he have melted everything? He doesn’t have fire powers.”

Will’s brain was whirring along faster than he’d ever felt it. “He doesn’t, but he can control any sort of lizard, right? What about that girl in your class? The dragon girl?”

“Will, for the last time, she’s not a dragon.”

“I know! Don’t you see? If she has any sort of lizard mutation or something like that, Todd would be able to control her!”

Layla gnawed on her lower lip as she thought it threw. “Okay, I suppose it’s possible. But if that’s what he’s doing, poor Jillian. Oh, Will!” she said, grabbing onto his arm and paling as something occurred to her. “The SecuriDogs! They have lizard DNA too, don’t they?”

Will felt the blood drain from his own face as the ramifications became clear. He'd thought when he saw them that morning that they must have komodo dragon DNA as well, hadn't he?

He took her hand. “We’ll stop him. We’ll go tell Principal Powers right now, and then-“

At that moment, a shrill and discordant klaxon echoed through the hall. Instinctively covering his ears with his hands to block out the noise, Will felt rather than heard the vibrations from the heavy, metal security doors slamming into place in front of every classroom.

“The security doors have activated!” he shouted at Layla.

She nodded. “That must be the security protocol Principal Powers mentioned!” she screamed back, obviously not able to hear him.

Will grabbed her hand and pulled her down the hallway to the first unblocked door that he saw. Pulling it open revealed a janitor’s closet, and he hustled the two of them inside and slammed the door behind them. The sound was still loud, but no longer deafening behind the door.

“I think Todd initiated the lockdown!” Layla was still shouting, but even so, Will could barely hear her over the ringing in his ears.

“We have to get Warren!” he said, a tide of panic rising in him. Warren was still locked in the detention room, his powers nullified. What if Todd the Toad was working with Baron Battle? What if Baron Battle was on his way to the school _at that moment?_

Layla patted his chest in reassurance. “Actually, I think we should get all our friends.” The alarm was still resounding through the building, but Will’s ears were finally starting to recover, so he was actually able to hear her when she spoke at a somewhat normal level. 

She grinned. “I have a plan.”

**

Quick reconnaissance revealed that Todd had, as expected, holed himself up in Principal’s Power’s office (he must have left the lab immediately after Will and Layla). The Principal herself was apparently off-site, responding to an apparently credible tip that Baron Battle was en route to the school. Freeing Zach, Magenta, and Ethan took no more than a moment as Will used his super-strength to lift the panic door in front of the lab. Will felt a bit bad leaving the rest of the students and Mr. Medulla locked inside, but he’d already put in a call home so he knew help was coming, and the eerie howls of the SecuriDogs were beginning to echo down the hall. They would be safer where they were, well-stocked with Mr. Medulla’s extremely cool MacGyvered weapons. Explanations didn’t take long, and their friends dispersed to fulfill their respective roles in Layla's plan. 

Then it was time to free Warren.

**

“Hey,” Will said, faux cool and casual as he busted through the door of the detention room. As Layla had anticipated, the power nullifier didn’t begin to affect him until he was physically within the room, so—though the glancing brushes with the nullifier's area of effect made his punches take more effort than normal—he made it into the detention room without much difficulty beyond bruised and scraped knuckles.

“Hey,” Warren replied, truly cool and casual where he lounged in one of the uncomfortable, wooden desks.

“I came to bust you out,” Will said before amending. “We came.” He gestured through the gaping hole in the wall where Layla waved brightly.

“Looks like it,” Warren said, staring at Will as though he was confused. Like he couldn’t understand why Will and Layla would have gone through the trouble, and that was just more than Will could really handle at the moment.

“You’re my best friend, Warren,” he said, apropos of nothing. “My _best_ friend. I’m not going to leave you here.”

It took another minute, but a slow, somewhat awkward (but real) smile began to materialize on Warren’s face. “Yeah. You too, Stronghold,” he said roughly.

“If you boys are done bonding,” Layla called from the hallway, “we have a villain to take down.”

“Yeah,” Will said, looking between the two of them and feeling a swelling of anticipation. “Let’s bring the justice.”

**

“Toad!” Will roared, punctuating his words with punches to the highly reinforced metal plate enclosing the principal’s office. “Todd the Toad! I’m talking to you!”

“That nickname makes no sense!” Todd yelled in fury. “I control lizards! _Lizards!_ Whatever jackass started that asinine nickname is going to be the first to die!”

“Yeah? Maybe the nickname is because of your _face_! Ever think of that?” Will wasn’t the best at trash talk, but he did his best.

An articulate shout of rage came, clear even through the security door, and the metal panel rose back up into the ceiling just as Layla had expected.

Will dove to the side, just in time to dodge a shot of flame—as wide around as his waist—that came screaming through the door.

“Gotta be faster than that,” Will said with bravado, unobtrusively trying to put out the flames on his tennis shoe, the only part of him that hadn’t escaped unscathed.

Jillian Wells, green-skinned and blank-faced stood over him, her pupils strangely dilated.

“Fry him!” The Toad screeched, and Will took off, literally. He hopped to gain a bit of altitude—not much, given that he was indoors—and tackled Jillian as gently as he could, hooking her around the waist with his arms and retreating down the hall to the botany lab with her thrown over his shoulder.

“You son of a bitch!” The Toad yelled after him, his voice rising in pitch as he grew more agitated. It was almost enough to drown out the sound of the growl—two growls, more—of the SecuriDogs converging on Will's location.

“Catch,” Will said breathlessly, tossing Jillian through the botany lab into a surprisingly springy mound of moss that Layla had prepared. He didn’t have time to say anything more—to look at her, memorize her perfect, lovely features the way he wished he could—but the visual of her standing ready in the lab, bathed in afternoon light from the window, was burned into his memory nonetheless. 

He took an extra second or two to wrench the security door back down from where he’d previously pushed it into the ceiling, and then he was out of time.

A heavy weight--hot, stinking, and dense with muscle--slammed into him and knocked him into the floor. 

Will rolled onto his back and kicked the SecuriDog off of him as softly as he dared. It bounced off the ceiling before recovering and landing on its feet in the hall, muscles bunched to leap again and teeth aimed unerringly at Will’s jugular. Another weight smashed into his back, and as he went down he spared a panicky moment to wonder if he could fly into the ceiling with enough force to give the creature pause without knocking himself unconscious.

Another column of flame, blue this time, and so tightly controlled it looked like a laser as thick as Will’s wrist, shot over his head and singed the ear of the SecuriDog preparing to leap. It twisted and scrabbled on the tile with a pained yelp.

“Thanks,” Will gasped as Warren pulled him up.

“Don’t mention it,” Warren said, shooting a couple of fireballs off that melted the tile and drove the pack of SecuriDogs surrounding them back a few feet.

“Try not to hurt them,” Will added. “It’s Layla’s request,” he explained in response to Warren’s incredulous look. “Are you ready for this?”

Warren sighed and honestly winced, but in the end he nodded and lifted his arms.

“If you _ever_ tell anyone about this, Stronghold, I won’t be responsible for my actions,” he growled as Will stepped up behind him and gripped him around the waist.

“You have my word, Warren,” Will said, holding him back to chest and leaping to put the two of them aloft. “This isn’t exactly my finest moment, either.”

In the end, the plan worked perfectly: inspired by the implications of the bus melting that Todd had intended with his frame job—Will carrying Warren—Will flew the two of them directly into Principal Power’s office. Before Todd could do much more than blink and sputter at them angrily, Warren threw a fireball at the smoke detector. As the fire alarm blared and the fire suppressing foam began to spray from the ceiling—doctored with Ethan’s knock-out gas by Ethan, Magenta, and Zach from the maintenance room—Will dropped Warren lightly and used the last of his strength to pull shut the security door, locking the SecuriDogs outside.

The final view of his conscious self was of Todd the Toad sliding down the wall into unconsciousness as the gas took effect and Warren sitting down comfortably with his back against the desk. Will’s legs lost feeling at that moment, and he sat down facing Warren, much less gracefully than the other boy.

“Good job, Stronghold,” Warren said as his eyes slipped closed. Will was far too tired to respond, but he learned later from his dad that when the heroes busted down the door a few minutes later, he was asleep with a smile, face to face with his best friend.

**

The resolution was, frankly, anticlimactic in Will’s opinion. Or at least, it ended well, but there wasn’t a heroic battle to recount afterward. But maybe that was how it had to be, given the circumstances.

Todd the Toad confessed to using his powers to control Jillian and use her to melt Mr. Medulla’s robot and the school buses (apparently her maximum temperature was a lot stronger than her conscious mind had believed, and she spent the months following the incident working with the school counselor to uncover her full potential). He had originally framed Warren because it was convenient: through his role as Mr. Medulla’s assistant, he knew all about the back-up security assets of the school, and he realized that if he created enough trouble for the SecuriDogs to be deployed, he would be able to use his power to control them and take over the school. He had no connection to Baron Battle that anyone was aware of.

In the end, for Todd it was all about fame. He had wanted his name in the news, and notoriety was just as acceptable for him as the accolades of the public. Will couldn’t help but remember the Ethics class a couple of weeks before and his statement about villains getting in the papers. Will wasn’t sure where he stood on the topic—he just wanted to do his best and make his friends and family proud—but it was sad and seemed like something to talk through with Layla at a later date.

In the end, Baron Battle did reach out to Warren. It was a few days after the incident at the school in the evening when Will’s cell phone rang. Will was just lying on his bed texting Layla, so he answered immediately. He could count on one hand the number of times Warren had called him.

“Hey!” Will said brightly. “You decide to take me up on the Halo rematch?”

There was a long pause, and when Warren spoke next, his voice was strange. “Will,” he said.

“Warren? You okay?”

“Will,” he said again, then took a deep breath. “My dad is coming. Here. To my apartment.”

Will sat up. “Yeah?” he asked cautiously, then waited.

Neither of them said anything for a long minute; the light, almost-there echoes of their breaths the only sound on the line. 

“Would you tell your parents? Please?” Warren asked in a whisper.

“Yeah,” Will said and did.

Will called Layla to tell her and then insisted on going with his parents. Not for the battle, but to pick Warren up and fly him back to the Stronghold house. Layla was already waiting when they got back, and the three of them sat on the porch roof outside Will’s bedroom window wrapped up in his comforter and watching the sky.

Baron Battle was back in Steelworth a couple of hours later. Warren’s mom—Hope Light—arrived at the house at the same time as the Commander and Jetstream. She wrapped Warren up in her arms and kissed his forehead and seemed genuinely happy to accept Will’s parents’ offer to spend the night in the guest room.

So Warren ended up as Will’s house-guest and roommate for a few days, and even after he was back in his apartment, Will's parents were always happy to have him over.

It wasn’t a perfect ending—the situation was too messy for that—and Warren still got a sad, guilty look on his face whenever anyone mentioned it, but Will still thought weeks after it was over that that feeling he had sitting on the roof with Warren and Layla--the feeling of completeness and rightness--was worth holding onto. And because of that feeling, he knew from the very depth of his super-powered bones that it was going to get better. Their friendship was the seed of true heroism, and it was worth holding onto as tightly as he could.

And given his life, that was really saying something.


End file.
